Congrats to Wyeth Lab alumni Areej, Carmen, Hannah and Kero for our latest publication in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Everyone has moved on to other things now, since this one was delayed substantially by the pandemic. They worked over several years, conducting a bunch of experiments on how pond snails navigate in different flow and lighting conditions. In the end, we found the first evidence from any animal of switching between two types of navigation behaviours depending on the flow conditions. In laminar flow, the snails seem to be following chemical gradients (chemotaxis) while in turbulent flow, they are likely following the flow (chemical-gated rheotaxis).

Alansari, A.F., Ucciferri, C.C., Stevens, H., Youssef, K., and Wyeth, R.C. 2025. Navigational behaviour of Lymnaea stagnalis in response to chemical and flow cues. J Exp Biol 228(16): jeb250746. doi:10.1242/jeb.250746. Alternate link for PDF access.